Maybe
by Winter's Melancholy
Summary: He stood at the edge of that threshold, thinking of what-ifs and maybes. A one-shot. Rated T for language.


Maybe- AoGA House Cup (1015 words.)

'_Maybe,'_ he thought. _'Maybe she actually loved me.'_

He stood on the edge of the precipice, rubbing his messy blonde hair. Twenty floors below, the cold pavement stared right back at him. It was going to be a long fall. The pedestrians walking along the street below looked like miniature figurines in his gaze. The sun could be seen in the distance, setting behind the hills, disappearing below the horizon.

His once shining eyes, blue with the innocence of a young man in love, were now dull and misted over. It was obvious from his slump that he was drained. His face was fixed in a blank expression. His shoulders were slouched, even as he dropped his hand from his hair and picked up the bottle that he had placed beside himself, taking a long swig from it.

It had been three days since his last bath. He had spent his days sleeping, his nights lazing around in his apartment, drinking his sorrows away. Microwave dinners and soap operas had become his best friend.

He smelled like shit, and he knew it. He could have cared less, though. He thought back to the women that had made him like this.

First, there had been Sumire.

They had met at a charity function. Sumire, the ever pretty rich heiress, had graced the event that night, and chanced a glance at him. They ended up dancing the night away, as their conversation while waltzing made the two realise they had much in common.

He had asked for her number. She had answered him, instead, with a request of her own. A request for a night at his home. They went back, and all had been bliss.

They started a stable relationship, meeting for dinners, making out passionately under the moonlight. He had thought that maybe, just maybe, she had loved him.

That was until Sumire decided to show off her true colours.

He had found her clinging onto some handsome, aspiring businessman mere weeks later, and his hopes had been crushed completely. He had confronted her, only to be made a fool of.

And so, the first woman he had fallen for had left him in the dust, dejected.

Then, Mikan had decided to come along.

They had met under different circumstances, far different from how he had met Sumire. Mikan had been a colleague, a new secretary at the law firm he had been working at. She had bumped into him while bringing files to his partner, Natsume.

Her apology and cheeky grin had won him over instantly. He asked her out for coffee that lunch break, and there began a long series of meetings, conversations and shy dates.

Mikan, he had thought, was different, and that she was. Compassionate, soft-spoken, and with a cheeky streak to her otherwise demure and gentle personality, she had brought out the best in him.

They slowly, but surely, became best friends and confidantes, spending at least one night a week out drinking and enjoying themselves.

He slowly fell for her, as he thought she had as well.

What he hadn't noticed, though, were the furtive glances she had thrown at her boss, Natsume, or the nights she had coincidentally been uncontactable at the same time her boss had.

And so, yet again, he thought, maybe- maybe he had a chance at love this time. He had thought, like he did prior, that maybe, just maybe, she had loved him as well.

When he summed up the courage to talk to her one night in his home, and decided to pour out his feelings to her at that moment, though, she had kindly, but swiftly rejected him.

She had quietly run her hands through her long, auburn hair, and then looked him straight in the eye, a sad smile on her face.

"Ruka, you're really great and all, but I can't agree to that. I love Natsume. I didn't know how to tell you this without breaking your heart. We've been dating for some time already, and so, I'm sorry, but I'll have to turn you down."

She then hugged him, and proceeded to add, "I'll accompany you for the night, if it'll make you feel better."

She had spent that night watching him as he drunk his way to the bottom of a seventy-proof bottle, sobbing all the way.

When he awoke the next day, she had left.

And so, his thoughts brushed through the few days after that incident, right up to the moment where he had decided to come up to the roof.

His phone beeped at that point.

Reaching out into his crumpled suit jacket, he fished out his phone, its battery nearly flat from the three days it had been away from the charger. The screen was caked with dirt.

He glanced at the home screen.

Twenty missed calls, two from Natsume, eighteen from Mikan.

He glanced at his messages, and looked at the message right at the top of his log.

Natsume had fired him for missing four full days of work.

He sighed, and looked down, dropping his phone to the ground with a dull thud.

The cracked screen mirrored his broken heart.

His once shiny shoes were now a dull sheen of black, his once pressed suit now rumpled.

Maybe, he thought, he had placed too much hope in his 'maybe's.

Maybe, he thought, he might have been too naïve.

But one thought lingered in his mind the most, though. The only thing he knew he was sure of.

Death would be a much-anticipated escape from his heartbreak. After all, there was no 'maybe' attached to that statement.

He smiled a bitter, tired smile, and stared at his bottle. A final, long swig later, he had emptied it.

Maybe, he thought, just maybe- people would miss him.

He continued smiling quietly to himself, as he settled the bottle down on the ground beside him, threw himself off the threshold, and free-fell to the ground, feeling the wind as it rushed through his hair.

The crimson sky that evening mirrored the stain on the pavement that he left behind.


End file.
